American folk music is a musical term that encompasses numerous genres, many of which are known as traditional music or roots music. Roots music is a broad category of music including bluegrass, country music, gospel, old time music, jug bands, Appalachian folk, blues, Cajun and Native American music. The music is considered American either because it is native to the United States or because it developed there, out of foreign origins, to such a degree that it struck musicologists as something distinctly new. It is considered "roots music" because it served as the basis of music later developed in the United States, including rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and jazz.
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Many roots musicians do not consider themselves to be folk musicians; the main difference between the American folk music revival and American "roots music" is that roots music seems to cover a slightly broader range, including blues and country .
Roots music developed its most expressive and varied forms in the first three decades of the 20th century. The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl were extremely important in disseminating these musical styles to the rest of the country, as Delta blues masters, itinerant honky tonk singers, and Latino and Cajun musicians spread to cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. The growth of the recording industry in the same period was also important; higher potential profits from music placed pressure on artists, songwriters, and label executives to replicate previous hit songs. This meant that musical fads, such as Hawaiian slack-key guitar, never died out completely, since a broad range of rhythms, instruments, and vocal stylings were incorporated into disparate popular genres.
By the 1950s, all the forms of roots music had led to pop-oriented forms. Folk musicians like the Kingston Trio, pop-Tejano and Cuban-American fusions like boogaloo, chachacha and mambo, blues-derived rock and roll and rockabilly, pop-gospel, doo wop and R&B (later secularized further as soul music) and the Nashville sound in country music all modernized and expanded the musical palette of the country.
The roots approach to music emphasizes the diversity of American musical traditions, the genealogy of creative lineages and communities, and the innovative contributions of musicians working in these traditions today. In recent years roots music has been the focus of popular media programs such as Garrison Keillor's public radio program A Prairie Home Companion and the feature film by the same name.
Genres here range as widely as the definition of folk music itself; working definitions are based on the style and themes of the music regardless of its source. Many are a part of the American Folk Music Revival, including works by Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, The Weavers, Burl Ives and others. Others evolved in the 1960s including storytelling type performers such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, The New Christie Minstrels, The Limelighters, The Kingston Trio and Judy Collins and counterculture and folk rock performers such as Peter Paul and Mary and The Byrds.
In 2004 NPR published the book titled The NPR Curious Listener's Guide To American folk music,[1] Linda Ronstadt wrote the foreword.
Notable roots musicians have included Jelly Roll Morton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan, Bessie Smith, Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Son House, Leadbelly, Hazel Dickens, Jimmie Rodgers (The Singing Brakeman), Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, Merle Travis, Townes Van Zandt, Johnny Cash, Maggie Simpson, Mahalia Jackson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Washington Phillips, Fiddlin' John Carson (1868–1949), Johnny Richardson (1908–present; children's folk music), Willie Nelson, and Jean Ritchie. More recent musicians who occasionally or consistently play roots music include Keb' Mo', Ralph Stanley, Jewel, John Denver, Chris Castle, Ricky Skaggs, and Jeremy Fisher, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul & Mary.
Hootenanny, a 1963 musical variety show broadcast on the ABC network in the U.S., primarily featured folk musicians.
The soundtrack of the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou? is exclusively roots music, performed by Alison Krauss, The Fairfield Four, Emmylou Harris, Norman Blake and others.
In 2001, PBS broadcast a 4-part documentary series, American Roots Music, that explored the historical roots of American roots music through footage and performances by the creators of the movement.
The 2003 film A Mighty Wind is a tribute to (and parody of) the folk-pop musicians of the early 1960s.
A six-hour public television series, The Music of America: History Through Musical Traditions, appeared in 2010.
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